


Safe Harbor

by vodkaanddebauchery



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: Broh Week, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Seasickness, oops I accidentally OCs again
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-30
Updated: 2012-07-30
Packaged: 2017-11-11 01:28:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,772
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/472948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vodkaanddebauchery/pseuds/vodkaanddebauchery
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Bolin’s sick, all bets on Iroh being a Responsible General are off.<br/>Day 1 (Comfort) of Broh Week.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Safe Harbor

**Author's Note:**

> For Day 1 of Broh Week, “Comfort” being the theme. Any excuse to write some good ol’-fashioned h/c, really.  
> I couldn’t help but slip my United Forces OC in here, because she is fierce and I love her more than I should.

It took some adjusting to, like everything else, but Iroh thought that Bolin was adapting to life on the ship remarkably well.  
Early morning drills he had down-pat, used to rising early for pro-bending training. Each task he was assigned, he threw himself behind with full-force enthusiasm, and the earthbenders on the crew got used to making room for him during training each day. He wasn’t a contracted member of the crew, of course, so he really didn’t have to, but the young earthbender’s palpable eagerness to pull his weight set alight little glowing embers of pride in Iroh’s chest every time he made an excuse to go check on him.

Then the fleet hit the open ocean, and yes, it soon became obvious that Bolin never had the chance to lose his land legs. 

“I’m gonna die.” 

Iroh didn’t know what was more alarming: Bolin passing up breakfast when his appetite could put some of the most voracious eaters on the crew to shame, or later coming back from the mess to find his lover sprawled facedown on the floor in front of his cabin’s WC.  
“Bo!”  
Bolin mumbled something, forehead pressed against the cool metal floor. Iroh reached out a hand, pressed it to the back of Bolin’s neck, where messy strands of black hair clung to his clammy skin. Heinous exotic diseases raced through Iroh’s mind, each one as unlikely as the next - Sweating Sickness, Coastal Typhoid, both regional strains of Polar Flu, even the dreaded Pentapox, though there hadn’t been an outbreak of that in nigh on 80 years - but then Bolin pitched to his side, straightened long enough to raise his head above the privy, and threw up. 

It seemed to go on for a very long time. Bolin’s hands shook with the effort of gripping the privy. His face was pale and dripping with the sweat that accompanied extreme nausea. Then he repeated, “’m gonna _die_ ,” and Iroh remembered saying something similar, during the first storm he’d ever weathered, years ago. Everything clicked. 

“You’ve never been out this far in the ocean, have you?” The General crouched on his haunches, giving the sick earthbender as much space as he possibly could in the cramped water closet. Gently, he smoothed the sweaty hair back from Bolin’s forehead.  
“That is a negative, sir,” Bolin muttered weakly, before a second wave of nausea overtook him. Iroh conscientiously flushed the privy when he was finished. 

“Just give me a few minutes,” he said. The General had never heard his voice so shaky, not even on the (very frequent) occasions when he applied every ounce of his considerable resolve to _make_ Bolin’s voice as shaky as possible. But that, clearly, was not the issue right now. “I’ll be -” He hiccuped, grimacing. “ -fine in a few. You should get up to the helm. You’ve got...duties.”  
“Duties?” Iroh frowned.  
“Yeah. Y’know. Boaty...shippy duties.” Bolin shortly turned a delicate shade of green, and turned just in time to avoid heaving on Iroh’s coat. 

Yeah, Iroh had duties. Logically, he knew this was just a bad bout of seasickness and Bolin would feel better in a few days at the very most. But right now? Right now he looked _miserable._ Earning your sea legs was never a very pleasant business, but it was a rite of passage that nearly everyone on the crew had been through. 

....so, Iroh reasoned, they would understand if he took the day off to help Bolin through this. There was no sympathy like seasickness sympathy. 

Iroh stood, grabbing the face flannel from where it hung next to the sink, and dampened it with cool water. He handed it off to Bolin, and before he could help it, rubbed a comforting circle on his lover’s shoulders, wishing he could do more to make the sickness less awful.  
“You’re not going anywhere,” he said in the tone usually reserved for giving orders. “Unless it’s back to bed, and don’t even try to get back into bed if you don’t think you can manage it. I’ll go speak to Lieutenant Kinaktok about seeing to those those boaty-shippy duties.”  
He heard Bolin groan something about ‘General Slacker’ and ‘mutiny’ while he was leaving, but it was lost in another wretched heave. 

The ship’s glacial Lieutenant, as it turned out, was less receptive to the General’s pleas than he would have liked. Iroh had never before met a woman who could shoot him down simply by raising a thin eyebrow and almost-but-not-quite scowling, and he was Fire Nation nobility, for spirits’ sakes - but Lieutenant Kinaktok eventually cracked under the weight of both her unspoken fondness for Bolin and her loyalty to Iroh. Lips pressed thin, the waterbender nodded. “Just this once, General.”  
“I’m grateful, Lieutenant. Really, I am.” Iroh looked, with no small sense of regret, around the bustling helm and its army of busy navigators and communications managers. But this was hardly the first time that Kinaktok took over leadership duties at the helm, and it would hardly be the last.  
She cleared her throat. “What are you still doing dawdling up here? Go take care of your young man. The ship will survive a day without you at the helm. Give him my best wishes.” Folding her arms across her chest, she didn’t even dismiss him, just turned her back to start discussing windspeed and charting courses around weather patterns with a nearby navigator. 

He ran into the ship’s earthbenders headed above-deck for daily drills when he left the helm, and apologized awkwardly for Bolin’s absence. They hid their disappointment, but just barely, and wouldn’t let him go until he promised to pass on their well-wishes for Bolin’s speedy recovery. It was amazing, Iroh thought, that he managed to end up with a crew that was not only unshakably loyal to him, but also to his partner, who wasn’t a soldier or a sailor at all. 

And really, Iroh hadn’t realized just how deeply the earthbender had managed to integrate himself into the crew until he thought to stop by the kitchens on the way back to the cabin. The head cook made a small exclamation of dismay upon hearing that Bolin was indisposed, and immediately started searching for a finger of ginger to grate into tea. Her assistant, small, wrinkled, and universally adored by everyone on the ship, handed the pot of steaming tea off to him and promised in an undertone that she’d whip some Earth Kingdom comfort food up specially for the poor sick earthbender, if he was feeling well enough to keep it down. Iroh kissed her wrinkled cheek with gratitude and promised to pass the message on, along with the get-well-soon sentiments from what seemed like the majority of the crew. 

Bolin had managed to make it back to the bunk when Iroh arrived back at the cabin. Half of the blankets were on the floor and one of his legs hung, awkward, off of the bunk.  
“Lieutenant Kinaktok says she hopes you feel better soon,” Iroh announced, setting the tea tray down on his bedside table with a rattle of china cups. “As does half the ship.” 

Bolin made a muffled noise into the pillow, but sat up when Iroh poked his shoulder and pressed the tea into his hand. He sniffed it. “Whuzzis?”  
“Ginger helps with nausea, drink up,” Iroh said. “All of the boaty-shippy-duties are being taken care of, courtesy of Kinaktok, and I think news of your plight convinced the cooks they needed to deliver something special to you for lunch.” 

Bolin swallowed about half the tea in one go, but pulled a face when he was done. “Ugh. I don’t know what it is with you firebenders and ginger. Mako can’t get enough of the stuff, but...blugh.” He threw back the rest of it, though. Iroh dutifully refilled the cup.  
“Would you like me to get you anything else?”  
“Not really,” Bolin mumbled. Some of the color was starting to return to his face, and he’d stopped sweating, at the very least. “A bucket, maybe. Just in case. But I think it’s over for now.”  
There was one of those under the sink in the cabin’s WC, thankfully; Iroh stationed at the ready by the side of the bed. Making occasional grumbling noises, Bolin sipped through his second cup of ginger tea, and handed the cup off to Iroh. 

“Anything else, Bo?”  
“Yeah. Get down here.” Bolin peered up at him. “I’m not leaving this bed for the rest of the day and neither are you, if I can help it.”  
“Are you sure - I mean, I can run to the infirmary really if you’d like something stronger than the tea -”  
“Iroh, shut up,” the earthbender grumbled, scooting aside to make room for Iroh on the entirely-too-tiny bunk. “Ugh. My boyfriend has the day off and he wants to spend it running around like a headless roosterhog, when he just needs to get back in bed with me and make sure I don’t die.” 

Iroh, well, he knew how to take a hint, and kicked off his boots. It took some adjusting, readjusting, and mild shoving because Iroh absolutely would not lay down on the side of the bed in case Bolin needed to use the bucket, but finally they wound up with Iroh’s back situated against the steady wall of the ship, Bolin curled up against his chest. 

“I’d kiss you,” Bolin said into Iroh’s shirt, “but I feel like I’ve got gross breath still. And I brushed my teeth _twice_.”  
“You must be feeling better,” Iroh said, running his fingers through Bolin’s hair and loving the way Bolin butted his head up into the contact, like a cuddle-starved cat. “You’re forming complete sentences now.”  
“You try forming complete sentences after puking your brains out all morning.”  
Chuckling, Iroh rubbed a small circle behind one of Bolin’s ears with his thumb. “Remind me to tell you about the first storm I ever went through at sea.”  
“Mmm? Later, maybe.”  
“Later,” Iroh agreed. 

Bolin exhaled. The exertion of being sick seemed to be catching up with him, his face going soft and slack with sleepiness and all tension melting away under Iroh’s fingers. “If I start throwing up in my sleep, just make sure I don’t choke.”  
“I don’t think you’re in any danger of that. Get some sleep, Bo.” Iroh said. He craned his neck down, pressed his lips against Bolin’s forehead, and felt more than heard the sleepy mumble against his shirt.  
“Mm, ‘s nice. Love you.”  
“I love you too,” Iroh said, but Bolin was already asleep.


End file.
